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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Bad feeling about my earnings in marriage

212 replies

yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 19:21

Can anyone help me think about this. When I met my husband I was on an average/low salary. He is a decade older and earnt more. I then had two kids and had a year of leave with each, then went back part time. Meanwhile his earnings have skyrocketed. Now, post pandemic I am left in a very uncertain position on a contract that soon ends while he is at his peak. The pandemic was hard for me: childcare, bereavement and serious illness. I am applying for jobs.

There’s a mood in the marriage that I’ve seriously let the side down with my career/earnings. That I am earning too little, that I’ve made us poor.

What do you think? I did choose to look after the kids part time (this has paid off massively in terms of how they are) and I am also just younger, less ambitious, less capable of stress and endurance jobs….

I’m trying to work out of my husband is being unfair making me feel like this. Thanks.

OP posts:
CayrolBaaaskin · 17/11/2021 20:24

Tbf we are only getting one side of the story here

notacooldad · 17/11/2021 20:24

How long has he been unhappy with the situation?
Have you noticed any other changes with him?

Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:25

Yes, the change is his work has recently gone astronomical and he’s having a great time, while I am exhausted/run down/worried about my next career move

OP posts:
TractorAndHeadphones · 17/11/2021 20:26

@CayrolBaaaskin

Tbf we are only getting one side of the story here
Yeah OP - how much worth did your husband place on you being at home? Were you a lower earner because you were younger - or in a dead-end job. Was your first child unplanned? Was it a unilateral decision for you to stay home?
thesockfairydidit · 17/11/2021 20:27

@over2021

I'm a woman OP and I put earn my husband by a similar margin to your husband and you.

Like fuck has he helped me progress in my career so I don't buy the argument that you have helped him simply by providing childcare. I've worked bloody hard for it and if he went part time then tried to convince me it was doing me a favour I'd bin him.

That view is outdated and it's frustrating to hear women spouting terms like 'wife work' in 2021. Bowing out now.

😐 so having someone available to take the slack at home whilst you do the long days, meetings at short notice and trips away with work hasn’t helped you progress in your career…. ?
Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:27

I should say I’m in a pretty good career too with lots of accomplishments, just pared back to pt with little progression. He’s leant in, as it were, which has given me little room to manoeuvre just as I need it. But also insults my position.

OP posts:
SeaOfLights · 17/11/2021 20:29

@over2021

I'm a woman OP and I put earn my husband by a similar margin to your husband and you.

Like fuck has he helped me progress in my career so I don't buy the argument that you have helped him simply by providing childcare. I've worked bloody hard for it and if he went part time then tried to convince me it was doing me a favour I'd bin him.

That view is outdated and it's frustrating to hear women spouting terms like 'wife work' in 2021. Bowing out now.

I am a single parent, have been for years and I know that life would have been a damn sight easier if someone else had been home to look after the children and make sure gym kits and packed lunches were sorted and all the million things I juggle with a full-time job. I earn a good salary, don’t get me wrong, and I have done it while bringing up children, which I am glad I got to do, but I simply do not believe that people with a spouse at home or working part-time do not have an advantage professionally. Of course they do.
blueshoes · 17/11/2021 20:29

OP, your dh said that 'you have taken him for a ride'. He may very well be completely unreasonable in what he expects of you but the choice of words suggested that you led him down a garden path. In the interests of unpicking what is going on, you need to acknowledge what role, if any, you played in leading him on.

You did not offer the fact that you both had different life goals from the start. I had to ask even though it was a fundamental assumption of the earliest posts that it was a joint decision for you to take the substantial brunt of childcare at the expense of your career.

We did discuss it but we always had different ideas about it. One of my main life goals had been to look after the kids more and I really wanted it, but for him he would have had a wraparound care lifestyle with us both as a couple who sometimes saw their kids.

But it sounds like he never really bought into that. There must have been murmurings all along the way from him. Did you brush that aside, expecting him to go along with your choices?

This is not a criticism. Just trying to get to the root of how you arrived at this juncture in your marriage.

TractorAndHeadphones · 17/11/2021 20:31

@thesockfairydidit I've met quite a few people high earners (mostly men) who have full-time nanny/housekeepers. And also quite a few who (while they said nice things about having a family) didn't even know where their own children went to school... don't think they cared whether they had kids or not.

It's unfair of OP's husband to be mean to her but they don't seem to have shared the same views to start with

Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:32

I was young and didn’t really know what I would have wanted in the situation until I had children. I found I wanted to be involved (pt). The cost would have been the same as the childcare so we agreed it was fine.

OP posts:
Viviennemary · 17/11/2021 20:32

Sometimes it doesn't work with one partner earning most of the money. It creates an imbalance in the relationship. And can cause resentment.

Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:33

Yes, however every time I’ve been going back to the workplace he’s made it quite impossible for me to take priority. For example after my second may leave taking a 10x more important job that meant he was only at home about an hour a week.

OP posts:
blueshoes · 17/11/2021 20:34

@yellowpdfdocuments

I was young and didn’t really know what I would have wanted in the situation until I had children. I found I wanted to be involved (pt). The cost would have been the same as the childcare so we agreed it was fine.
Fine until the dcs are older and childcare costs fall away to zero and now he thinks you should step up?
Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:34

I think everyone is right, it boils down to totally different priorities. Thanks, this has been useful.

OP posts:
Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:34

Yes @blueshoes, that’s it

OP posts:
Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:35

And I am trying to! But I’ll never catch up

OP posts:
Justbetweenus · 17/11/2021 20:38

The cost would have been the same as the childcare so we agreed it was fine. It’s not though is it? I hate this argument. The very short-term cost of childcare is the tip of the iceberg. The massive hidden cost is the impact on your career potential, future earnings, pension savings, etc.

blueshoes · 17/11/2021 20:39

@yellowpdfdocuments

Yes, however every time I’ve been going back to the workplace he’s made it quite impossible for me to take priority. For example after my second may leave taking a 10x more important job that meant he was only at home about an hour a week.
Whether he is aware of it consciously or unconsciously, it sounds like he is setting you up to fail. It would be impossible for you to catch up in terms of earnings.

Is he saying he had a different person in mind? Could he be having an affair?

RandomMess · 17/11/2021 20:39

My thoughts are exactly what Lollypop wrote. I also wonder if some high earning attractive single woman at work has caught his eye and now he wants that couple lifestyle and is starting the campaign against you so you feel too worthless to stand your ground to either call him out in his attitude or take your abs the DC share in divorce.

He is weaving his narrative good and proper.

FallonCarringtonWannabe · 17/11/2021 20:40

mumsnet at its finest is such a cockhead thing to say.

Op, your dh is wrong to speak to
You that way. Maybe have a secret chat to a solicitor before having a talk to your dh about how he is not valuing your role etc.

Luredbyapomegranate · 17/11/2021 20:41

Well it sounds like you always saw this differently. Which isn't unusual. Did you talk about it before? You must have done to an extent -

Are you both getting fed up with the marriage? For sure - you don't want to be around someone who makes you feel bad.

On the bright side you should be in a good position financially if you split. So if I were you I would gather all the financial info. Go see a solicitor. Find out how it would be split. So you are ready should it come to it - you don't want to give him the opportunity to start hiding money.

And once you have all that ready have a think if moving on might be the best thing for everyone. If you do do that, don't accept anything less than an equal share - you raised the kids and you worked PT, that's a perfectly fair contribution.

HollowTalk · 17/11/2021 20:42

@yellowpdfdocuments

Recently (and especially as his career reaches astronomical levels) he’s started to say I have ‘taken him for a ride’ with reference to my staying at home with the kids/working pt
That would be it for me.
Original poster
yellowpdfdocuments · 17/11/2021 20:43

Yes, and it rubs both ways. I’m not disposed to think maximum money is best. I’d have loved him to go part time too, we could have afforded it

OP posts:
Gandalf456 · 17/11/2021 20:46

How old are your children?

TrulyPistoff · 17/11/2021 20:46

So basically, it’s not love is it.

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